Trust Is Earned
by DragonsintheMoonlight
Summary: After locking Barry in the pipeline and turning down the temperature to decrease his chances of running away once they finally let him out Team Flash goes off to fight Zoom. Zoom gets away from them and they head back to STAR Labs (Joe isn't taken by Zoom) to find the conditions they left Barry in threatened his life. Now they have to save him and work on getting his trust back.
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing**_

Barry sat quietly in the pipeline. He wasn't sure how long he'd been in there. It'd been hours, but of how many, he couldn't be certain. His perception of time was different than it was to other people. Hours felt like days sometimes. All he could think about was Zoom's hand being rammed through his father's chest and his friends and family locking him in a cage for being emotional about it. Would they act any different if they were in his position? He wanted to be angry with them, but at the same time, he was too busy being worried about them. What if Zoom killed them?

They had turned the temperature down in the cell to thirty degrees. That was probably to keep his muscles stiff for when they finally let him out of the cell; they wouldn't want him to run off or anything. Speed and cold were opposites, after all. If Barry were a normal person, he would get hypothermia in about half an hour at this rate. Thankfully, he was a metahuman with a healing factor and was working on vibrating, but he was getting too weak to. It had been hours since he had eaten. He'd probably been in this cell for about three hours and hadn't eaten anything for around four before that. He couldn't bring himself to. He just wasn't hungry. That sounded so weird coming from a speedster, but loss of appetite could come as a symptom of the depression grief can cause. Now, however, he was starting to get it back. He was starving and he was burning all his calories shivering and vibrating to stay warm.

Barry started to feel a bit lightheaded after another hour or so. It was like how he would back when he didn't realize how fast his metabolism was. He needed to stop vibrating; he was expending too much energy.

Barry still felt lightheaded and decided it might be a good idea to lie down. As he lowered himself down, he yelped as the dart in his back brushed the floor and jerked back up. He'd forgotten it was there. They hadn't even had the decency to take the dart out of his back.

He reached around, trying to remove it, but he couldn't reach it. He struggled with it for a few minutes, but that only made him feel weaker and he was unsuccessful at making any progress. He didn't even come close to taking it out. Barry's vision started to blur, whether it was from the tears pooling in his eyes or the dizzy spell, or perhaps both, he didn't know. Whimpering, he lowered himself onto his side.

He kept shivering, curled up into himself on the ground, hoping they would be back soon.

* * *

Team Flash returned to STAR Labs after an unsuccessful attempt to take down Zoom. They'd been out there all night and now morning had come. They were all exhausted. Zoom had seen right through their fake Caitlin and when they tried to open a breach and force him back into Earth Two, he fled. They continued searching for him for several hours to no avail. If Barry had been there, they probably would have caught him, but they all knew it was for the best that they locked Barry in the pipeline. Really, it was for his own good in all their minds.

Despite their fatigue, Team Flash got coffee out and discussed what they could try next. Sadly, Zoom had seen through their only plan and now knew they were coming for him. They didn't know what else they could try.

"Well," Joe said, "if we aren't going to come up with any ideas any time soon, we should check on Barry. See how he's doing."

Caitlin's eyes widened. "Oh, my God. He… he's been down there all night."

"So?" Cisco asked.

"Well, we turned the temperature down to thirty degrees, remember?" she said. "I thought we were only going to be gone for a couple of hours. We haven't exactly tested it, but we _know_ he doesn't do well in the cold."

"What are you saying, Caitlin?" Iris asked. "I mean, he heals. He's alright, isn't he?"

"I… we need to check on him," she said.

The team made their way down to the pipeline and opened the door to Barry's cell. He was lying on his side, eyes closed, not even shivering in the cold cell. The floor of it was frosty and Barry's cheeks were tinged slightly red from the cold. The dart was still sticking out of his back.

Joe opened the cell immediately and pulled his son out of there. Barry was ice cold to the touch. Joe felt his neck for a pulse and breathed a sigh of relief when he found one, though it was weak.

"We need to get him upstairs," Caitlin said. "And get blankets. Lots of blankets."

Joe pulled the dart out of Barry's back and carried him upstairs to the med-bay as quickly as he could. He laid Barry down on one of the beds and pulled the top half of his suit off, trying to remove as much of the cold clothing from his son's body as possible. Caitlin was already looking him over as Iris, Cisco, and Harry came into the room with as many blankets as they could find.

They covered Barry in the blankets, trying to get him warm.

"Is there anything else we can do?" Iris asked. "Would heating pads help bring his core temperature up?"

"No!" Caitlin said. "You never want to use heating pads, warm water, or massages to warm someone with hypothermia up. You could cause his blood vessels to open up too quickly and his blood pressure to organs such as his kidneys, brain, heart, and lungs could fall dramatically. He could go into cardiac arrest and very likely die. We're just going to have to make due with the blankets. If we can get him to wake up, we can give him a warm drink, though. Or something else high in energy…" her eyes widened.

"What is it, Caitlin?" Joe asked.

"We… we had him down there all night. And for a good part of the afternoon," she whispered. "Who knows how much energy he expended trying to stay warm? Add it all together… I need to start him on an IV. He's probably starving."

Caitlin started fixing up the IV to get nutrients into Barry's body.

They continued to cover him with blankets, wrapping the majority around his torso and the sides of his head. Eventually, Barry started to stir as the warmth and the nutrients entered his body.

His green eyes fluttered open and he whimpered.

"Hey, Bar," Joe grabbed his son's cold hand. "It's me. It's Joe."

Barry looked at him in confusion. "J-Joe," his teeth chattered. "Wh-wha-what's g-go-going o-on? Wh-where a-am I?"

Joe glanced at Caitlin.

"Confusion and memory loss are symptoms of hypothermia," she explained.

"You're at STAR Labs, Bar," Joe said. "You have hypothermia, but you're going to be okay. I need you to keep shivering for me, though, okay? You need to get warm."

"I-I'm ti-tired," Barry whispered, his eyes drooping.

"I know, Bar, but you have to stay awake, okay?" Joe said. "As soon as you're better, you can go to sleep."

Barry whimpered.

Cisco exited the room and quickly came back with some very high calorie protein bars. "Here," he said, handing them to Joe.

"Barry," Caitlin turned to her patient. "I need you to cough for me, okay? I need to make sure you can swallow before Joe gives you something to eat."

Barry glanced at the protein bar. His stomach felt like it was being clawed at with the hunger coursing through him. Obediently, he let out a small cough.

Caitlin nodded to Joe. "Give it to him a little at a time."

Joe opened the protein bar and broke off a piece. He brought it to Barry's mouth and the speedster took it gratefully. Once Joe had finished giving him the protein bar, they had Barry drink some water Iris had heated up, and then they gave him another protein bar. Caitlin had had to start him on a second IV before they were finished.

By the end of it all, Barry was exhausted. His eyes were drooping, but he was shivering less. He was no longer in danger. "Can I go to sleep now?" he asked in a small whisper.

"Of course," Joe said, stroking his son's hair gently. "Go to sleep, Bar."

Barry's eyes fluttered shut and he quickly drifted off.

"What did we do," Joe whispered.

"We were just trying to protect him," Harry said. "We didn't know things would turn out this way. Though it was pretty stupid of us to leave him in a freezing room with nothing to eat and a fast metabolism when we weren't a hundred percent sure how long we were going to be gone. That's on us. We have to live with it, and we have to hope he can find it in his heart to forgive us. Knowing Allen, he will. It's only forgiving himself that he has a problem with."

Harry glanced at Barry one last time before heading off to find his daughter. Since Zoom was still on the loose, he was worried about her seeing as she'd been held hostage by him for months. He'd come back to check on Barry again later. He had grown very fond of him while he was here. If he had had a son, he hoped he would have been like Barry. Barry had made him a better person than he had been when he first arrived on Earth One.

Joe, Cisco, Caitlin, and Iris were still in the room with Barry. He was still shivering a little and had burrowed deep into the blankets.

"How could we have done this?" Joe asked. "We put him in there to _protect_ him and instead we nearly got him killed."

"We didn't mean to, Dad," Iris said, sitting next to her father on the edge of Barry's bed. "He'll understand that."

"Will he?" Cisco asked. "Barry wasn't okay when we put him in there. He was… he was so upset. I almost couldn't do it. I mean, what we did wasn't very good for him mentally either. One of us should have stayed with him. We didn't _all_ have to go after Zoom."

"Cisco, with Zoom, it was kind of all hands on deck," Caitlin said.

"No," Iris said. "I could have stayed with him. I'm not a scientist, I wasn't needed as a distraction for him, I wasn't needed to shoot at Zoom… I could have stayed with him. If I had, not only could I have given him the comfort he needed, but I could have prevented this from happening. He could have asked me to take the dart out of his back and I could have relieved him from that pain, he could have told me he was getting too cold, too hungry… we left him unsafe. That was the exact opposite of what we were trying to accomplish."

"There's nothing we can do about that," Joe said. "We can't dwell on what we _should_ have done, what we _could_ have done. We can only make choices now. We have to focus on the present. We made a mistake and we need to make it up to Barry now. We can't let him go race Zoom; he could just get himself more hurt, but we need to stop contributing to that pain. To that danger. We almost killed him tonight. If we hadn't checked on him when we did…"

None of them wanted to think about what it would have been like it they'd all decided to go home and get some rest, if no one had bothered to check on Barry until much later. The thought of going down to the pipeline to find his corpse frozen to death in a cell made all of them feel sick.

They all ended up taking turns watching over Barry. They were pretty sure he was going to be okay, but they wanted to be absolutely sure. After neglecting him until he almost died, they were afraid to not have someone watching him. They all needed to sleep though, so they couldn't watch him all at the same time. They all slept in shifts.

* * *

Barry woke up around mid afternoon. By then, all of them were awake and Caitlin had changed his IV bag several times.

Barry opened his eyes to find himself in the med-bay in STAR Labs. The last thing he remembered was lying down on his side in the cell they all put him in. He remembered the cold, the hunger, the pain… he remembered wanting it all to just go away. And now it had… for the most part. He was still hungry.

Barry struggled to sit up, finding himself covered in blankets. They were making him really hot. He found that ironic. Not to long ago, he'd felt like he was freezing to death, and now he was boiling.

"Barry."

Barry turned toward the voice to see Joe sitting in a chair beside the bed he was in. "Joe?"

"How are you feeling, kid?" he asked.

"Hot," Barry said, pushing some of the blankets off him.

Joe smiled, but it didn't quite meet his eyes. "I'm so sorry, Bar."

"For what?" he asked. "Leaving me locked in a cell after my father just died or nearly killing me in it."

"Bar-"

"You know what the worst part of that was?" Barry turned toward him, eyes hard. "It wasn't that you betrayed me, that you _literally_ shot me in the back and locked me up in a cell like I was a criminal, like I was some _weapon_ you can put away when you don't have need of it or send to a repair shop to calm down when it malfunctions-"

"Bar, that's not-"

"It wasn't that you lowered the temperature and starved me until I almost died by the time you came back. I'm assuming that's why I'm covered in blankets, right? I got hypothermia. And the IV bag. That's because I went into hypoglycemic shock again, right? I was at least close, wasn't I?" Barry said. "But no, those two things, they _hurt,_ Joe, but they weren't the worst part of what all of you did. The worst part was that you went off to fight that monster without me. You all could have _died._ You could have been murdered by him just like my dad was and I would have been powerless to stop him again." Tears welled in Barry's eyes and he started sobbing. "I can't lose you too."

"Barry, you're not going to lose me," Joe said. "You're not going to lose any of us."

"I didn't think I'd lose my dad, either," Barry said. "But I did. He took him from me."

"Oh, Bar," Joe said, pulling his son up into a hug. "It's okay; I've got you."

Barry pushed back a little. "Do you? Do you, really? Because I needed you, Joe, and you weren't there. You don't lock someone in a cage when they're _grieving._ You don't leave them alone with nothing but that. I needed you, all of you, but you just left me. And I needed you when I almost died, too. You told me you got a feeling when Iris's appendix burst. You knew she needed you. Did you know _I_ needed you when I was down there? Probably not, right? I'm not _actually_ your son. I'm some charity case you took in. My father is _dead."_

"Barry, I'm so sorry. You _are_ my son," Joe said. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. We all should have been there for you. What happened yesterday will _never_ happen again. I promise."

"How can I trust you?" Barry asked.

"I guess I'll just have to earn that back," he said. "All of us will."

Barry was silent for a few moments before nodding. "Okay. I'll give you a chance to earn it back. Let me take down Zoom. You all thought I didn't have a plan, but I do. I did then, and I do now. I said I was going to make him suffer, right? Well, I know exactly how to do that."

"Barry, this isn't you," Joe said.

"Would you prefer I kill him?" he asked. "My plan doesn't involve that. I don't want to kill him. And I don't think you want me to either. Think about it, Joe. We can't send him back to Earth Two. That's selfish. We'd be leaving Earth Two at his mercy with no one to save those innocent people. And we can't lock him up. It's too likely that he'd get out. We tried to trap him once; it didn't go too well. I have a way to stop him for good that doesn't involve killing him. And if you can trust me this time, then I think I can maybe start to trust you again."

Joe hesitated, and then said, "Okay, Bar. What's your plan?

 **AN: Well, please review and let me know what you think about this story.**

 **I personally got so mad at Team Flash when they locked Barry in the pipeline. It was cruel and wrong to do to a grieving person. So, I decided to exaggerate the circumstances a little more so it was a tad more life threatening, but if you really think about it, it still kind of was. Even though they didn't lower the temperature on him, they still locked him up for hours without any nutrients. That isn't exactly a good thing with how fast his metabolism is. I'm willing to bet a speedster could starve to death much faster than a normal person could. I really wish Flashpoint hadn't happened, because I wish season three could have been less about everyone bagging on Barry for creating Flashpoint in a moment of grief and more about Barry not trusting Team Flash anymore because they betrayed him. They shot him in the back and locked him in a cage. Who's to say they couldn't do that again to him? How can Barry ever trust them again? How could he not have been more upset with them for it? I just wish Barry wasn't so forgiving sometimes, but at the same time, it's one of the qualities about him that I love. Barry's ability to forgive is part of what makes him much more likable than any of the other characters in my opinion. They all proved to be pretty unforgiving about Flashpoint. Anyway, sorry for the rant. I could honestly go on all day about it, but it's pretty late where I am, so I should probably stop here.**

 **-DragonsintheMoonlight**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing**_

After Barry defeated Zoom and the other speedster was dragged off into the speed force by the time wraiths, Team Flash wanted to celebrate. As they were all talking about going back to Joe's house to do so, Barry started walking away from their little cluster. He didn't feel like celebrating. His father just died, his "team" had nearly killed him after locking him up because they didn't trust him. Barry didn't feel like he won; he felt like he still lost. Why would he celebrate this?

"Bar, where are you going?" Joe asked.

"I don't feel like celebrating," Barry said. "We may have taken down Zoom, but he already won. You guys go ahead without me."

"Are you sure, Barry?" Iris asked. "I mean, we are going back to Joe's house. You live there. Are you sure you wouldn't want to join us for a few hours at least?"

Barry stared at all of them. "Yeah, I'm sure. And I'm not staying at Joe's tonight."

"What?" Joe looked confused. "But-"

"I'm going to stay at this old hall, hanger thing that STAR Labs owns… or, I guess technically I own it now," Barry chuckled humorlessly.

"Why are you going to stay there?" Caitlin asked.

"Because, no offense, guys, but I don't really feel like being around any of you right now," he said.

"Barry-" Cisco started.

"I know, you're sorry," Barry said. "But let's face it: sorry doesn't always fix everything. I just… I need some _time._ This wasn't just you guys locking me up, not trusting me… you nearly _killed_ me."

"Barry, we-" Iris started.

"I don't need to hear you try to justify your actions," Barry says. "Fact is, you could have left the temperature normal and you could have given me a few power bars before you left. But you didn't. If you're going to keep someone prisoner, you should at least treat them humanely. Back when we had no choice but to lock metahuman criminals in those prisons, we made sure all their basic needs were met and then some. Caitlin took Weather Wizard's order for Tai food and made sure to only get Death Bolt vegan food. That's better than the prison food my dad got…" Barry took a deep breath. Any mention of his dad made him feel like a knife had pierced his gut. "Point is, none of them almost died in their cells because their wardens were too careless to actually make sure they were okay."

"Barry, we weren't there to know you weren't okay," Cisco said.

"Yeah, Cisco, and that's part of the problem," Barry said. "Go celebrate Zoom's defeat if you want. But I won't be joining you."

Before any of them could reply, Barry sped away. He reached the hall that used to belong to Wells in less than a minute. He set up a little place for him to sleep with a blanket and pillow and climbed down on the floor. He wondered if maybe he was overreacting about what happened. They didn't _mean_ to almost kill him…

 _Do you even hear yourself?_ A voice in the back of his mind demanded. _You're trying to justify their actions when they almost KILLED you. Maybe you could have forgiven them if they had simply locked you up, but this is different._

And it was. Yes, it hurt that they would lock him in a cage, betray his trust, and leave him alone while he was grieving, but the fact that they just had to turn the temperature down that far and starve him like that was too much. And only Joe had even said he was sorry. Caitlin, Cisco, Iris, Harry, and Jesse had conveniently avoided the topic. With Harry, it sort of made sense. Harry wasn't the type to have some big emotional apology, especially when Zoom was still a threat, but Barry thought the others would at least say something. The only person there who didn't have to was Wally, but Barry and Wally had never really gotten along. Barry wasn't even sure what it was that made Wally dislike him so much. It seemed like it might be jealousy though, seeing as Barry got to grow up with Joe when Wally didn't. But Barry didn't know why Wally would be jealous of that. The only reason Barry got to grow up with Joe was because his mother was MURDERED and his father CONVICTED for the crime! It was nothing to be jealous of.

Barry suddenly wondered what it would be like if he grew up with his parents. He could make that happen. He could run back in time, save his mother. Then none of this would ever happen. He wouldn't feel so broken, so hollowed out inside. He would be happy…

"No," he whispered. "No, I can't do that. I'm sorry."

Tears streamed down Barry's face. But as much as he wanted to, there was a reason he didn't save his mother when Thawne told him he could. His future self held out a hand to stop him. Barry wasn't supposed to save his mother for some reason. He didn't know why his future self would tell him that, but he trusted him. Something bad could happen. Part of Barry wanted to argue that something bad already _had_ happened: his mother and father were _dead,_ but he didn't want to fathom what might happen that could be _worse_ if he did this.

You break the sound barrier and there is a sonic boom. You break the time barrier and there is a time boom. Barry couldn't risk what that might entail.

"I'm sorry, Mom," he cried. "I'm sorry, Dad."

Part of Barry wanted to run home and be engulfed in a giant hug by his friends and family, but he resisted the urge. They hurt him even more. They brought him to the brink of death, just like Zoom had once. Barry wasn't sure how he was ever going to trust them again. He told Joe he would give them a chance to earn his trust back, but right now Barry was pretty sure the only way he could ever trust them again was if he distanced himself from them for a little while. He needed to find some peace.

He wasn't sure how he was going to find peace, though. If he brought his parents back, that would be peace, but he couldn't risk it. So what would he do instead? He had no one right now. It made him want to forgive Team Flash right now so he would have someone, but he just knew that he had forgiven them immediately one too many times. It was time they actually faced the consequences of their actions.

Barry quickly realized he wasn't getting to sleep any time soon, so he got up. He had a couple things he wanted to work on anyway:

A new brighter red suit, a flash ring, and Gideon. It was time to be more like the version of him that was from the future, the version of him that was capable of doing all this on his own, because after what Team Flash did to him, Barry had never felt more alone in his life.

 **AN: I wasn't sure if I was going to continue this or not, but enough people wanted me to, so here is chapter 2. I hope Barry's reaction to all of this isn't too OOC or anything. I always try my best to keep characters in character. I feel like Barry would normally be more forgiving, but I had to take him slightly out of character there, because I think Team Flash deserves it if Barry doesn't forgive them for a while. Honestly, sometimes it feels like Barry would let them all get away with murder and I am sick of it. This time, they are going to have to work to earn his forgiveness, and even then, I don't know if Team Flash is ever going to be the same. They went too far this time. Now Barry is going to start being the Flash on his own and cutting them out of his life for a while. It's just what he needs after they almost killed him when they locked him up while he was grieving his father's death. Barry needs time and he is going to realize in this time that he doesn't really _need_ Team Flash. **

**Thing is, I have been reading a lot of comics lately, and I have realized just how pointless it is for Barry to have Team Flash on the show because he really doesn't need them in the comics. I know the show isn't the comics, but if they actually followed Barry's intelligence and his powers as they are in the comics, then the role of Team Flash becomes obsolete. In vol 8 of the Flash comics, _Zoom,_ Barry is teleported two thousand feet beneath the pacific ocean. Panic set in and he instinctively propelled himself to the surface in mere matter of seconds. It was agonizing: his ocular capillaries were hemorrhaging, his eardrums were ruptured, and his lungs were wracked with pulmonary embolism. But Barry survived it and he didn't need a doctor to do so. His healing factor took care of all of those problems for him. Maybe he could use help resetting a bone, but he might just need an anatomy textbook and an x-ray machine to do that himself. His healing factor would take care of the rest of it. So, there's no need for Caitlin. **

**Barry has proven himself quite capable of engineering and using a computer both on the show and in the comics. In the show, Barry recreates the earbuds used to block out Pied Piper's sound waves to protect himself and Kara from Silver Banshee's screams, he created the Algorithm to find Livewire, he is going to invent Gideon in the future, and let's face it: there is no way Cisco made Savitar's suit. I don't care what anyone says. Cisco would never do that for Savitar; he proved that when he didn't fix the speed force bazooka the way Savitar wanted him to. It's pretty obvious that Savitar made that suit himself; no one else would make it for him. In the comics, vol 9 of the Flash in the New 52, _Full Stop,_ the Riddler uses Trickster's robotic arm to interfere with Golden Glider's powers and make her comatose. Barry took the arm and changed the setting to undo the damage. Mirror Master asked him if he was a robotics genius and Barry replied with, "No. Just a quick study." I don't know if I believe that's all there is to it, though. Barry seemed like he was just being modest considering most people without engineering degrees wouldn't know where to begin with fixing that. So, Cisco is obsolete, because Barry can engineer things to help him on his own. Barry also shouldn't need Cisco to vibe to help out either. Barry could find missing things/people without vibes easily by running around at super speed looking for them like he did in season one. And Barry has his own form of ESP, or at least he should. Barry in the comics is able to think at super speed so fast that he can predict the most likely outcome of an event. It's practically as good as seeing the actual future, which he technically can also do by running to it. So, he doesn't need Cisco's visions. Barry can also open breaches by himself. He opened the ones to Earth two when trying to close the singularity and he opened one to Kara's Earth. He doesn't NEED Cisco to open breaches for him. That's just the writers giving Cisco another thing to make him useful, when Barry honestly should be able to punch a hole to another dimension just like Zoom was by the end of season 2.**

 **Barry also doesn't need an in with the police. He is his OWN in with the police. So, he doesn't need Joe. Iris doesn't really help him that much, Wally isn't Kid Flash in this and in the comics, Barry went quite a while without Kid Flash, same as he did on the show, and personally, I don't think Barry actually _needs_ Wally's help in the comics or in the show. He's handled problems just fine without him for quite a while. Having back up just makes it a bit easier.**

 **And he shouldn't need them telling him how to use his own powers all the time! That honestly drives me crazy. Barry knows how to use his powers on the show and in the comics. In the comics, he actually has to help Kid Flash/Bart Allen in vol 4 of the Flash, _Reverse,_ because Kid Flash goes so fast he reaches escape velocity, which Barry has done before as well, and he had to rescue him because Bart isn't the science nerd Barry is and didn't understand what he was talking about when Barry tried to explain to him what was happening and how to control his mass through vibration and allow the laws of gravity to kick back in. But in the comics, when that happened to Barry for the first time and he started hurtling toward space, there was no Caitlin and Cisco talking in his ear and telling him what to do. He figured it out ON HIS OWN. This fic is going to explore some of that. It is going to explore how Barry can get along just fine without Team Flash. They won't be able to talk him into forgiving them because he "needs them". He doesn't need them. They're going to have to find some other way to make it up to Barry.**

 **Anyway, I hope you guys all enjoyed this chapter. Sorry for any Team Flash fans who don't like it when I bag on them sometimes in my author's notes. I swear, I don't actually hate Team Flash. They just frustrate me to no end sometimes, especially after everything they did to Barry in season 3, especially Cisco. I just think for once it should be Barry who is upset with them, and rightly so after what they did, and them having to work to win his forgiveness/trust back.**

 **-DragonsintheMoonlight**


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing**_

Barry spent the next couple days working on his new suit, the ring, and Gideon. Gideon would probably take a while to perfect, but he had the first draft of her done on a computer. The suit was created, as was the ring. All Barry had to do was study how Thawne's old ring worked and recreate his own. Getting his suits molecules to compress down into the ring was easier than Barry thought it would be.

He hadn't stopped working on his three projects in days. He was on leave from the precinct so he could mourn and distracting himself with some kind of work helped him take his mind off his father's death. Barry actually hated it that he was forced to stay out of work while he grieved. His work helped take his mind off things and allowed him to focus on something other than the grief that was pressing down on him.

Clad in his new suit, Barry sped out of the hall and ran through Central City, making laps around the Gem City like he usually did. He would swoop in and save anyone who needed saving, whether it was a mugging or something else much worse. There were no metahumans that needed stopping though.

Barry realized he couldn't stay at the hall forever, but he didn't want to go back to Joe's house either. As he sped by an apartment complex, Barry stopped. He stared at it for a moment. Part of the reason he'd moved back in with Joe was because it was getting hard to hide flashing in and out of his apartment from his neighbors, but Barry had gotten quieter over time. He would probably be just fine living in one now.

He got out of his suit and back into his civilian clothes before approaching the apartment complex.

* * *

Eventually, Barry was finally cleared to go back to work after his father's murder. Really, he couldn't be happier to be back on the job. He loved working as a CSI. What he didn't like was that a lot of the officers seemed to be walking on eggshells around him. It wasn't every day you met someone whose parents were both murdered in front of him, one just recently via a vibrating hand through his chest.

Barry wished they would treat him normally, even if that was to yell at him or call him 'baby face'. He really didn't want to be treated any differently; that just reminded him of everything that happened.

He spent most of his time up in his lab, processing evidence from a crime scene he had visited earlier.

"Bar?"

Barry turned to see Joe standing in the doorway to his lab. "Detective West?"

Joe blinked in surprise. Barry had never addressed him as 'Detective West' before. Barry supposed that may be going a little far. Joe _had_ raised him, he was the reason Barry had a home all those years and didn't go into the system where he would most likely be abused and turn out to be a criminal. But then he remembered that Joe was also the reason he almost died a few days ago. What parent almost kills their own child?

"Did you come for the evidence on the Burns case?" Barry asked. "Because if so, you're going to need to wait a while longer. I'm still processing it."

"That's not why I'm here, Bar," Joe said. "I came to see how you were doing."

"I'm fine," Barry said.

"I don't believe that," he replied.

"I don't care what you believe right now," Barry informed him.

"Barry-"

"Joe, I have forgiven you, Iris, all of Team Flash, for a _lot_ of things, but that changed when you almost killed me," Barry said.

"Bar-"

"I forgave you for calling me crazy my entire life, I forgave you for forcing me to lie to Iris about being the Flash; she hated me for a while because you wouldn't let me tell her. And the thing is, I told her to be mad at me and not you, when the truth is, _I_ wanted to tell her the second I got these powers and would have if you hadn't told me not to. I forgave Cisco for creating the cold gun that has killed people and almost gotten me killed several times, I forgave both Caitlin and Cisco for getting me struck by a bolt of lightning, I forgave Harry for stealing my speed, I forgave all of you for _vaporizing_ me… but this time? You went too far."

"Barry, if we knew you were going to be hurt by-"

"You _should_ have known," Barry said. "You know I don't do well in the cold and you know how fast my metabolism is. Thing is, with how cold those temperatures were, if I was a normal person, I would be dead right now. You would have been too late to save me. And I just can't get over that. Not yet, anyway."

"Barry, tell me what I can do to make this right," Joe said.

Barry shook his head. "I don't _know_ what you can do to make this right, Joe. I honestly don't."

Joe was silent for a few moments before asking, "When are you coming home, Bar?"

Barry looked at him. "I'm not."

"What?"

"I'm not coming home, Joe," he said. "Because it doesn't feel like home right now."

"You can't stay in that hall forever, Barry," Joe said.

"That's why I got an apartment," he said.

"Well, what about Team Flash?" Joe asked desperately. "You all have to work together to stop metahumans."

Barry shook his head. "No, we don't. I think it's time, for a while at least, I do all this on my own."

"Barry, you tried that once after the singularity; it didn't exactly work," Joe said.

"It worked for months," Barry said. "If it wasn't for Atom Smasher, it probably would have just kept on working."

"Bar, you need your friends," Joe said.

"Yeah, well when they can _act_ like friends, I'll consider it," Barry said. "But friends don't lock each other in ice cold cages."

Barry took a deep breath. "I know, I'm being harsh. I'm hurt right now, and honestly, you pressuring me like this is only making it worse. I need _time,_ Joe. You're not giving me that right now. If you ever want things to possibly be back to the way they were, then you'll give me time to get past what happened, to forgive you. All of you. I don't want to be mad at you forever, I don't want to not be able to trust the man who raised me, the woman I love, the people I call my friends… but right now, I can't trust any of you. I'd like to believe you'd never put me in that cell again, but the thing is, I didn't think you would put me in it in the first place. It was too easy for you guys to shoot me in the back with a tranq dart, lock me in a power-suppressing cell, turn the temperature down to thirty degrees, and nearly kill me that night. Right now, I feel like I have to watch my back around all of you _._ Until I can get past that, we won't be able to work well together as a team.

"I called Oliver yesterday," he confessed. "He told me that if his team did to him what you did to me, he would never trust them again. They'd be out. No more Team Arrow. Luckily for you, I'm a little more forgiving than Ollie is. But I am going to take part of his advice and keep you at arms length for a while. I told him I don't want to cut all of you out entirely, so he said I should just make sure I have some space for a while. Can you give me that?"

Joe nodded, his eyes sad. He never thought a day where his son asked him to give him space because he couldn't trust him anymore would come. "Yeah, Bar, I can give you that."

Barry nodded. "Thank you."

* * *

Joe met with Team Flash in STAR Labs after talking with Barry and told them all about his conversation with him.

"But what if he needs help out in the field?" Iris asked.

"Well, we can always monitor his vitals through the suit, can't we?" Joe asked.

"Actually, I'm not so sure about that," Caitlin said.

"What do you mean?" Iris asked.

"Well," Cisco said. "Cait, Harry, Jesse, and I were all here late last night when there was a report about the Flash stopping several muggings. But that's the thing, we got no vitals, we couldn't communicate with him through his comms… it was like he wasn't in his suit."

"But Barry would never go out there out of suit," Joe said. "He would never compromise his identity like that."

"Unless he's in a new suit," Harry said.

"What?" Cisco asked.

"Think about it," he said. "I think you all forget sometimes just how smart Allen is. He helped me figure out how to close the breaches. He really is far more intelligent than you give him credit for as you talk in his ear and tell him how to use his own abilities. He made the Green Arrow's mask, didn't he? Well, who's to say he didn't just make himself a new suit? After all, doesn't your future newspaper article show him in a different suit than the one he's been running around in lately?"

"The brighter red one," Cisco said. "You think Barry made himself that suit?"

"So we couldn't monitor his vitals or track him," Harry said. "We really did destroy his trust. I'm actually surprised. He's forgiven us all for a lot… I guess this was just one betrayal too many."

"He said he wanted us to give him space," Joe said. "Are we actually going to do that, then? We're not even going to keep track of him and make sure he's alright?"

"How are we going to do that if we have none of his vitals in this new suit?" Caitlin asked.

"Harry," Joe said, "if this was Jesse we're talking about, you would track her down in a heartbeat."

"True, when my daughter ran away I didn't stop searching for her," Harry said. "But you know where Barry is. It's not like he's up and left Central City. He's still around; you see him at work. If Jesse truly wanted space from me, well, she's an adult. I can't _make_ her do anything, even if I would love to. Barry is even older than Jesse, Joe. He's twenty-six-years-old. You can't just ground him when you're upset with him. And the thing is, none of us have a right to be upset with Barry right now, whereas he has every right to be furious with us. We've nearly killed him twice now. We betrayed him. If Barry never trusted us again, I certainly wouldn't blame him."

Team Flash was silent for a while after that. Harry was right; they had lost Barry's trust and they really didn't deserve a chance to earn it back. Really, it was amazing that Barry wasn't going to do what Oliver would and cut them completely out of his life for good.

 **AN: Well, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter. Again, I really hope Barry doesn't seem too OOC. Thing is, Barry wants to forgive Team Flash, but he doesn't feel like he can trust them, therefore he cannot forgive them yet. It's hard to grant forgiveness to someone who has already hurt you before and you don't feel like you can trust them. Team Flash has done a lot of things that have hurt Barry and several things that should have broken his trust, like Cisco creating the cold gun. It just became too much after they nearly killed him in the pipeline.**

 **So, one of my guest reviewers left a review attempting to defend Team Flash. I deleted the review, because it honestly seemed like it wasn't even completed and I don't see why they would leave a review to defend Team Flash after the giant rant I went on. You guys have to realize that this story isn't going to be that friendly to Team Flash, which from most of my reviewers' responses, I think most people who are reading this story are okay with that. Barry isn't going to forgive Team Flash for a while, because they really don't deserve his forgiveness. I really have mixed feelings about Team Flash after season 3. I have a lot of resentment toward their characters because of how they treated Barry and I am writing this fic partially to help me get past all the anger I feel toward them. Seriously, I shouldn't feel so much resentment toward fictional characters, lol. One thing I would like to address though is that this person's review really didn't defend Team Flash that well. I can particularly counter what they said about Caitlin. Cisco I felt like I already addressed in my last rant. Barry doesn't need him for his engineering or his powers and I already explained why. As for Caitlin, this reviewer tried to say that if Barry gets three bullets stuck in him, then he needs Caitlin's help to get them out. Here is why that isn't true. First of all, the idea of Barry actually being shot is absurd. Barry should never be shot if he sees a shot coming. Barry is fast enough to catch bullets. I can't actually recall a time in a comic where he was shot by a bullet and he has caught lots of bullets on the show. It's not like the tranq darts that he cannot hear. It's probably happened, but it obviously doesn't happen easily. If he did get shot, it's very possible the bullet wouldn't stay lodged in him. There could be an exit wound and then Barry just needs to let his healing factor fix him up. And if the bullet didn't go straight through him and was stuck, Barry can phase bullets out of himself. So, once again, Caitlin is not needed. If for some reason he really did need help with something like that, though it's honestly doubtful unless the bullet was out of reach or something, Barry could always run down to STAR City and I am sure Oliver and Dig could easily remove a bullet or shrapnel from him and then his healing factor would kick in and he would be fine. Or he could dash on down to a hospital and get someone to remove it there. I doubt the doctors would remove his mask and they wouldn't hesitate to help the Flash if he was injured protecting the city.**

 **HarHer DrayAll: I'm not sure yet if Oliver and Kara are going to be there for Barry. I already worked in a phone call with Ollie, but I'm not sure how much more there will be of him. As for Kara, I would love to bring her in, but I'm not sure exactly how, when, or how long for. One other thing I have been considering is bringing in Green Lantern. Hal Jordan is Barry's best friend in the comics and I have a few story ideas where Barry and Hal become BFFs. This story could benefit from that as well. Cisco and Caitlin could realize that if you're not a good friend to someone, they may just find a better friend. I'm not sure if that will happen, though.**

 **-DragonsintheMoonlight**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing**_

The next couple weeks went by and Barry didn't see much of his friends or family. He saw Joe at work, but that was about it. The others had stopped by a few times at the precinct, but Barry was busy working. Work wasn't exactly a place to hang out or mend a relationship. He stopped a few metas... on his own. It was easier to do with Team Flash's help, but not impossible to do without them.

Barry was making more progress in creating Gideon. He was certain making her would take a while, but he had been thinking about it ever since he first learned of his role as her creator. He would have to make her at some point or she would fade out of existence. And being alone gave him plenty of time to work on creating her.

In all honesty, every time Barry saw Joe at work, he wanted to tell him he had had enough space and was sorry for pushing all of them away. But he restrained himself from doing that. As much as he wanted to forgive his family right on the spot for what happened in the pipeline, he couldn't. There was a lack of trust there now. He wanted to forgive them, but he knew it would be hard for them to function as a team if he felt like he had to watch his back. He never had before, but after being shot in the back by them, _literally,_ he was slightly afraid of it happening again. What if another Zoom came along and they decided they had to lock him up for his own good again? He doubted they would almost kill him again. He knew they never meant to do that in the first place and would take precautions if they ever felt they had to lock him up again to make sure he wouldn't be physically hurt when they did. But what about emotionally? That was what _really_ hurt about this entire situation. Not one of them stayed with him. As they had left, Barry had wanted to scream, "Don't leave me alone here! Please!" and he had… after they were already gone.

Truth was, Barry didn't like being alone. Which was ironically exactly what he was doing to himself now. They had left him alone and now he was pushing them away and was alone again. It was yet another one of the reasons why Barry wanted to forgive them. He was tired of being alone.

Before, when he disbanded Team Flash after the singularity, he had still lived with Joe. He could still go home and not be alone. But now he was entirely alone because not only had he disbanded Team Flash, but he'd moved out and was avoiding all of them. And he had no one to blame for that but himself and he knew it.

But it was more than just a lack of trust in all of them that was keeping him from wanting to spend time with them. Fact is, even if he felt he couldn't trust them as teammates right now, he was ready to forgive them for what they did and try to be friends, to be a family again. He was ready for that less than a week into avoiding them. But there was another reason why Barry couldn't let them back into his life. The memory of Zoom shoving a hand through his father's chest just because he was someone Barry loved haunted him. Barry didn't want there to be anyone for another Zoom to take from him like that.

Back at his apartment after work, Barry turned on the news. He'd been watching it a lot lately, mainly due to the fact that there were children disappearing from Central City, Keystone, and Coast City. And a lot of them at that. Any child from age twelve to seventeen could disappear, particularly ones from group homes. There were also a lot of children being deemed runaways, but Barry wasn't so sure. What if there was another reason those children were disappearing? What if it was the same reason the others were?

He'd been putting together a case for them and was pretty sure he knew where the kidnapper was going to strike next. It was a group home in Coast City. Barry would have to call in sick to work if he was going to check it out. Or perhaps if he just went over there tonight, he wouldn't have to worry about calling in sick. He could stake the place out for the evening, stop the kidnappers should they show up, and if they didn't show up, he could always race back to Central City in the morning and be on time for work.

His decision made, Barry sped over to Coast City.

 **AN: Sorry this chapter is so short. I promise the next one will be longer. I just feel really bad because my author's note is way longer than the chapter itself. There are some important things I need to address in this author's note. Really, I was considering just posting the author's note first and then continuing with the next chapter, but I don't really like doing that since I know what it's like to be super excited to see something has been updated, only for it to not really be updated, so I decided to write the next chapter before posting the author's note. I promise the next chapter will be longer.**

 **spiderman1fan: I've decided I'm going to work in the Invasion! crossover. I'd toyed with the idea, but after you asked for it, I came up with a way for it to really work for this story. Thank you, :)** **.**

 **I also have decided I am going to bring Green Lantern into this fic. I think he would work really well when I get to the events of Invasion! and since this fic's version of Invasion! is going to be a bit different from the show's, Green Lantern's appearance will help it make more sense. His role here is also going to help contribute to the endgame plot of this, which involves Team Flash making amends. Green Lantern knows how to block out fear and he'll be able to tell that Barry is afraid of something and encourage him to get past it. I've been wanting to write fics with Hal in them for a while anyway. I love his and Barry's friendship in the comics and the show has teased him way too many times. First we have the end of season 1 with Ferris Air where Barry says one of the test pilots disappeared. Then we have season 2, where Barry is impersonating his doppelganger on Earth 2 and we see on the phone that one of his contacts is named Hal. And of course two of the others were Bruce and Diana which only made it worse seeing as we may never actually get to see any of them make an appearance on this show.**

 **So, I've had some people give me some really negative reviews and messages about this story. I'm continuing it for those who enjoy it, but let's get one thing straight: I don't need reviews that debate with me about Team Flash, I don't need reviews telling me that you don't like the premise of the story and that they whole situation is OOC, (if you think that, then why did you click on it in the first place after reading the summary?), and I don't need reviews telling me you're going to quit reading it or you can't get into it. Seriously, what is the point of that? Why do you think** _ **I**_ **need to know that? Lots of these reviews have appeared in the form of guest reviews, so I don't have to approve them. Thing is, why would I approve a negative review? It's not constructive criticism; it's a flame. There is a reason lots of authors, and actors for that matter, actually never read their reviews. Writing and acting are vulnerable things where people put their work out there, and in my personal opinion, if you only have something negative to say, just click off the fic or put down the book. I've come across several fics where I've chosen not to even click on them because I can tell from the summary that I am not going to enjoy them. I've come across several that I've ended up not enjoying, and I don't take the time to tell the author I hate their work. I click off it and go read something else I actually enjoy. I am also not going to approve of a guest review that is trying to debate with me about Team Flash. I honestly get enough of that kind of thing on sites like youtube and tumblr and I really don't need it here too. This is a place where I am coming to write a story for those who might enjoy it, and while I may say some things in my authors' notes, that is NOT to start a debate. That is to explain why I may write something a certain way.**

 **I wanted to explore some of Barry moving forward without Team Flash. I didn't really want them to become a team again solely because Barry needs their help to take down any and all metahumans. I want it to be something bigger and I want it to be more personal too. I want them to realize that Barry can function without them as the Flash and for it to be more of a personal, family/friend connection for them to get back together. Otherwise, the only time Barry might need their help is because of some big crisis like in Invasion! He will get Team Flash's help when the dominators invade, but that won't automatically make it so they are back together and everything is fine again. That is why I talked about some of the powers he has in comics that should make it so he can get along without them. I want the reason for Team Flash to get back together to be because personal connections between friends and family are important. I also want Team Flash to realize that they have hurt Barry and sometimes you can go too far with that. Sometimes, after things accumulate, something like what happened in the pipeline can be the tip of the iceberg. Thing is, on the show, Barry lets Team Flash get away with a lot. I don't actually hate Team Flash. That is something I have said before. I just really don't like the way they treated Barry in season three. Before it was always just a few incidents here and there like the incident in the pipeline that had me angry with them. Other than that, I never had a complaint about their characters. But then I watched the first half of season three and I got angry with them, especially Cisco. It's not that I** _ **want**_ **to dislike their characters. I don't actually; I just still remember having hated them at a time.**

 **As for the entire fic being OOC because Team Flash would never do this to Barry, which is something one of my guest reviewers said, well, if that's what you think, then I don't see why you would click on the story in the first place. Fact is: the only thing that is different from the actual show is them lowering the temperature on him. And they didn't think it would hurt him. He heals and they thought they would be back sooner. I thought I at least sort of explained in chapter one that the reason they did that was because when they finally opened the door to Barry's cell, they wanted to talk to him, to calm him down, and didn't want him to bolt the moment they open the door. If his muscles were stiff from the cold, it would be harder for him to run away and they'd have a chance to talk to him, to most likely apologize to him. But they accidentally almost killed him in doing that because they were gone longer than they thought they would be. I'll go more into detail with that reasoning later as Team Flash tries to explain themselves in a future chapter.**

 **Also, as I mentioned in this chapter, the reasons he has for asking for some space have a lot more to them than just not trusting Team Flash or being angry with them. Yes, he is having some trouble trusting them after all of that, but he is also afraid of what happened to his father, (and his mother for that matter), happening to any of them. Both of his parents have now been taken from him. So Barry is left to wonder: Who is next? That makes it more than just a matter of forgiving them or learning to trust them again. He also mentioned in chapter one to Joe that he was afraid Zoom would kill them after they left him in the pipeline, which is honestly a legitimate fear. It would have been awful if Zoom had killed Joe too on the show when he captured him. At the end of the day, you have to remember, Barry loves each and every one of them. Yes, he's having some trouble trusting them right now, but the fact that he loves them is never going to change.**

 **If you have something positive to say or constructive criticism, please leave me a review. I always appreciate it when people give me positive feedback or constructive criticism. Flames on the other hand are not welcome. I understand that I can't control what other people do or say to me, but I can choose to delete guest reviews that come in the form of flames and I can choose not to read the entirety of a review that is a flame.**

 **-DragonsintheMoonlight**


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